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2008 FX poll:

Direxion Funds will launch a line of exchange-traded funds and a marketing campaign on ETF education. Direxion filed for 36 ETFs and could launch them by summer’s end, said Andy O’Rourke, marketing director. The firm told FA it was considering jumping into the ETF space in response to competition from Rydex and ProShares (FA, 2/4).

The global foreign exchange market continues to grow at an extraordinary pace, with most of the world’s largest banks reporting noticeable and at times dramatic growth in turnover volumes in 2007.

Headline results are now released.

THERE HAVE BEEN some significant winners and losers in this year’s Euromoney foreign exchange poll.

I did have to laugh this week. On the very same day we published the overall results of the Euromoney 2008 FX poll, market leviathan Deutsche Bank suffered an embarrassing problem with its Autobahn platform.

The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) published its Report of the Internal Working Group

The Parker FX Index has reported a 1.17% return for March. Of the 83 programs in the index, 53 reported positive results, 28 racked up losses and two were flat. On a risk-adjusted basis, the index was up 0.42%; the median return was 0.54% and performance ranged from a high of 13.97% to a low of –12.39%. Year-to-date, the index is up 2.28%.

Barclays Stockbrokers, a division of Barclays Wealth, has announced that its FX platform aimed at private investors has gone live following some extensive beta testing. The WeeklyFiX first reported Barclays’ plans last November. Since then the unit has conducted extensive market research to gauge the appetite for a margined FX service. It says that more than a quarter of investors (26%) surveyed are looking to trade FX in the future, with 16% already trading. The company, which claims to be the most active retail stockbroker in the UK, has declined to say how many clients it has; however, it is believed that the total is in excess of 400,000. Around 25% of these are deemed active, which suggests it has a lot of potential to attract some very significant flow.

You wait years for an investable FX index and two come along at once. Following hot on the heels of Barclays, Citi has announced the launch of its CitiFX Alpha portfolio of systematic trading strategies. The bank says these allow qualified investors to access FX and it has made four systematic trading strategies – G10 carry, emerging markets carry, trend following and economic factor model – available.

Sources say that Merrill Lynch has poached option traders Lee Cantor and Dave Katalan from Bank of America in New York.

Credit Suisse has promoted Steve Yanez as its global head of FX. As a result, Alain Delelis, Gordon Wallace, Simon Meadows and Ian Green, responsible for spot, derivatives, sales and e-trading, and distribution respectively, will now report to him. Yanez is a Credit Suisse veteran and previously headed up the bank’s short-term interest rate trading area.